


wish you would

by opalesce



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: 13 Going on 30 AU, M/M, Wonwoo/Mingyu and Soonyoung/Seokmin are also ships that will take place at some point, an incredible amount of '90s and '00s references, and mix cds absolutely there are a ton of mix cds, it's a pseudo-time travel thing??
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-11
Updated: 2018-03-08
Packaged: 2019-03-16 12:00:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,083
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13635864
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/opalesce/pseuds/opalesce
Summary: What Soonyoung wants is to be older. To be able to speed up past the point of having to deal with confusing feelings for his best friend, or being overlooked at school, or not being allowed to eat the delicious snacks lining the grocery aisles to his heart’s content. Supposedly, he’s grown a whole year older just today, but thirteen doesn’t feel any different or more freeing than twelve. If he could age up to, say, twenty-five, with everything figured out and on a silver platter for his taking, life would be much simpler.





	1. stop - spice girls

**Author's Note:**

> this is an au i'm really excited to be doing so first i want to collectively thank my friends who have been so encouraging of me as i've been writing it and talking about it!!!
> 
> some notes:  
> \- they're korean-american! chapter 1 takes place in queens koreatown and after that they will be in manhattan.  
> \- this is very much a soonwoo fic and they're always the focus, but as in the tags, they Will be involved in other pairings (meanie + soonseok) for some time. i just want to make sure it's clear to begin with!  
> \- some chapters will have spotify playlists to accompany them which will be linked within the text!

**2001**

 

“Sup, Nonu.”

Soonyoung pushes through a line of backpacks on the floor to put his lunch tray down and slide into the seat across from Wonwoo, who’s currently tearing open the plastic around a pair of Cosmic Brownies. He picks a handful of curly fries off his own tray and drops them onto the flattened brown paper bag next to Wonwoo’s thermos.

Once Wonwoo breaks the brownies in half, Soonyoung eagerly reaches a hand out, grinning when Wonwoo places one in his open palm. This is their daily ritual: Wonwoo gives Soonyoung a Cosmic Brownie, and Soonyoung shares some of whatever the school is offering that day with him in return. Soonyoung’s mom won’t buy him Cosmic Brownies and the like because she hates fun, and Wonwoo’s mom won’t let him get school lunch because she doesn’t _trust_ it. Little do they know, their sons have long since cracked the system.

He shoves the whole thing into his mouth at once, cheeks puffed out and even rounder than usual as he tries to chew it all. His eyes fix on Wonwoo meticulously picking each individual rainbow candy off the top of his own brownie and eating them first, one by one. Officially, Soonyoung thinks Wonwoo is a big-time weirdo for keeping up with this habit; secretly, he thinks _maybe_ it’s kind of cute. There’s something unsettling about the little indentations the candies leave behind on the surface of the brownies, though.

“One day your cheeks are gonna burst, like _pshhh_ ,” Wonwoo says, mimicking an explosion by curling his fingers into his palm and quickly splaying them out in the air. Soonyoung, undeterred, is already holding one of his remaining curly fries between his fingers.

“I need the energy, Nonu,” he manages to mumble out, before swallowing, “for my try-out. You’ll be there, right?”

Wonwoo nods, popping another candy into his mouth. “I still think you’re too good for them, but whatever.”

“I am, but that’s not the point.” Soonyoung stabs a straw into his chocolate milk carton with moderate effort. “Think about it. I could be their center.”

Nevermind that he’s tried out two times already and been rejected. Not making the team has never discouraged him—honestly speaking, Soonyoung knows he’s one of the best dancers in the school. What he wants is to be acknowledged as such, to prove it in front of everybody, and if he were to get popular next year as a result, well, he wouldn’t say no to that. It’s just that middle school is all politics.

 

* * *

 

The school’s gym is much too echoey for Soonyoung’s taste. He has his hands pressed up against his ears with as much strength as he can muster, fingers curled over the back of his head as an anchor, yet it’s still not enough to drown out the sound of the song being used as background music by the girl currently auditioning. If Soonyoung has to hear that nasal voice say it’s _gonna be him_ one more time, he thinks he might go postal. What’s worse is that this girl has chosen to do the group’s actual choreography step-by-step, and it’s not very strong—all shimmying and jumping around, nothing interesting. Having bad taste doesn’t make her a poor dancer, he supposes, but it’s hard to focus on technical skill with his ears being assaulted this way.

Wonwoo has his ears plugged, too, bony fingers pressing into them in solidarity. Boy bands have never really been Wonwoo’s thing, but Soonyoung has filled him in at least a hundred times over on the *NSYNC versus Backstreet Boys debate. He’d fight for the good name of the Backstreet Boys at Soonyoung’s side if it came down to it, and Soonyoung respects that.

Soonyoung only relaxes once he sees the three dance team members in attendance unenthusiastically clapping their hands, the now nervous-looking girl making her way back to her seat. The team captain calls his name, then, and he hastily pulls his copy of the _Black & Blue _ album out of his backpack, opening the case to slip his finger through the hole of the CD. He beams when he feels Wonwoo’s foot nudge Soonyoung’s own, code for ‘good luck’. Soonyoung nudges back to say ‘thank you’, knocking into Wonwoo’s knees as well as he sidles past him to walk down to the floor.

With the CD handed off to the person in charge of the boombox, Soonyoung makes sure they know to play track three, then hurries to the center of the floor to get into position for his dance. He makes eye contact with Wonwoo up in the bleachers, who gives him a double thumbs up just as the opening notes of “Get Another Boyfriend” blare from the speakers. Soonyoung starts to move along to the beat, precise in each motion he makes. Unlike most of the other hopefuls, Soonyoung’s choreography is his own, prepared two months in advance to ensure the biggest impact he’s capable of making. As much as the routine allows, Soonyoung keeps his eyes on Wonwoo throughout—for moral support, or energy, or something.

When he’s finished dancing, he takes an exaggerated bow to the sound of applause from the team leaders and the onlookers. He looks back up to see Wonwoo giving him a solo standing ovation, expression brightened in that distinct way that’s usually paired with a wrinkled nose, though he’s too far away for Soonyoung to confirm. Soonyoung intentionally scrunches his own nose up at Wonwoo, anyway, before he switches his attention to his judging panel. The captain, Hyunwoo, is giving him a look that’s hard to read, but Soonyoung flashes a mildly smug smile as he returns to his seat, proud of himself.

There are only a few more people left to audition after Soonyoung’s turn, and graciously, their musical choices are fairly solid. Right after Soonyoung is a group of three girls, one of whom he thinks is just there because the others needed a third person, doing a cover of S.E.S.’s “I’m Your Girl”. Wonwoo looks pretty psyched and starts bobbing his head along when one boy’s music turns out to be “All the Small Things” by blink-182. For better or worse, the routine that stands out the most to Soonyoung is the guy who does an uncomfortably slow dance to a song Soonyoung recognizes from that one time he and his older sister managed to sneakily watch _Cruel Intentions_. He thinks the entire dance may be seared into his brain forever, or at least until, like, tomorrow.

Once everyone has auditioned, Soonyoung zeroes in on the table where the three members are sitting while they whisper and pass papers of notes to each other. It feels a bit hazy when they all stand up, Hyunwoo announcing that they’ve decided on who’s made the team. So, it’s possible he’s a _little_ nervous, in the moment. It’s not that he’s worried about whether he did well enough, but rather the knowledge that he’d also done well the first two times and still been snubbed.

“Jihye Nam… Kelsie Park… Seunghyun Kim…” Hyunwoo reads from the list in his hand, “Soonyoung Kwon… Tyler Kim.”

Soonyoung, in a daze of glory, is only vaguely aware of the feeling of Wonwoo comfortably holding onto his wrist.

 

* * *

 

Soonyoung nuzzles into his pillow, comforter pulled up to his chin, for as long as he can before his mother comes back into his room and threatens to pick him up and carry him to school herself. He’s of the mind that a guy should at least be allowed to sleep in on his own birthday, but on the other hand, it’ll negate any cool points he’s gained from making the dance team if he shows up to school as a blanket burrito in his mother’s arms.

He begrudgingly slips out of the warmth of his bed, still blinking the sleep out of his eyes while he tugs on a pair of jeans and a blue t-shirt. On his way to the bathroom, he hits the ‘play’ button on his portable stereo and the first track of whichever mix CD has been in there since last time starts up. Soonyoung is most of the way through brushing his teeth by the time track two begins, and his eyes widen as he rushes the rest of the job, a few more half-hearted brushes to his molars before he spits into the sink and wills the water to wash it away more quickly.

To his relief, Soonyoung manages to get back into his room in time for the actual singing to start—he’s never fully appreciated the minute-long intro of “Everybody (Backstreet’s Back)” until this morning. With his foot, he pushes stray pieces of laundry underneath his bed to clear an adequate space to dance. This choreography is one of the more fun ones he’s picked up, and the song is from four years ago, so it has the novelty of being a total vintage classic.

In the middle of his spin at the end of the first chorus, his eyes catch a flash of Wonwoo standing in the doorway before he’s turned around again and bounding down to the floor for the next move, which he completes before righting himself. Wonwoo has a distinctly delighted expression on his face, curled up lips just barely showing teeth, eyes focused.

“Your mom let me in,” Wonwoo says, sitting down at the edge of Soonyoung’s bed. “I’m always late because of you, you know.” The hint of a smile remains on his face, furrowing his brows when he starts digging through his backpack.

“Am I the one sitting in bed right now?” Soonyoung snarks back, only to sit down next to him. It’s a bluff, anyway—strictly speaking, they don’t _need_ to be out the door just yet.

Wonwoo pushes his glasses back up to rest properly on the bridge of his nose, seeming to have found what he’s been looking for. His hand emerges from the backpack with two items, which he swiftly moves to hold out of view behind his back before Soonyoung can discern what they are.

(One of them is a mix CD, because it always is.)

“You know I can just lean back and see it, right, Nonu?” Soonyoung squirms around just enough to tease Wonwoo, but not to actually get a glimpse.

“Happy birthday, Soonyoung,” Wonwoo breathes out, through a laugh.

He hands the gifts over to Soonyoung one at a time. The first, predictably, is a [mix CD](https://open.spotify.com/user/kongsook/playlist/0xMFo88QoI6o6oJVTauZ0R?si=sh273XG_QveU0NezxXTS1g) in a clear plastic case, the disc itself decorated with doodles and words in multi-colored marker. It’s been tradition since fourth grade for each of them to make the other a mix CD for their respective birthdays—it’s also tradition for Wonwoo to hide it or pretend as though he hasn’t made one, and for Soonyoung to play along. The second is a Beanie Baby, a light-colored tie-dye bear with a shiny button on its front. Soonyoung lays the CD case flat on his lap, holding the bear with both hands and moving its small arms..

“Thanks!” Soonyoung smiles at him, cheeks bulging. “Wanna name him?”

Wonwoo hums, leaning his head in to look at the bear’s face. “Yeah, but you should pick.”

“Okay, I’m thinking… Lil’ Nonu.”

Soonyoung dodges Wonwoo’s attempt to flick him on the forehead. “No, come on,” he holds the bear closer to Wonwoo, waving it around, “he’s little, right? And he’s from you, so he’s Lil’ Nonu.”

“He doesn’t have any ‘lil’ glasses’, though.”

“That’s because he forgets them, just like you.” Soonyoung contorts his face into something resembling the hit-by-a-gust-of-wind look Wonwoo wears whenever he leaves his glasses at home.

Wonwoo snorts, scooching closer on the bed to knock his shoulder into Soonyoung’s. He doesn’t move back to his spot, just allows their shoulders and upper arms to rest faintly against each other.

“I really—can I do something?” Wonwoo shoots a wary glance toward Soonyoung’s open bedroom door.

“Yeah?” Soonyoung just blinks at him.

Soonyoung has not nearly enough time to register the tilt of Wonwoo’s head and the rapidly decreasing space between their faces before Wonwoo’s lips are pressed against his own. His eyes instinctually flutter closed, but he’s not sure what else to do. Is he supposed to move his lips? Wonwoo isn’t, not really—he’s just sort of applying gentle pressure in place, so Soonyoung opts to follow his lead, featherlight.

The shaky feeling in his stomach kicks in after Wonwoo pulls back and they’re looking each other in the eyes. Wonwoo’s front teeth dig into his bottom lip. Soonyoung knows it’s only been about ten seconds since the kiss, but it feels like they’ve been sitting here for an hour in silent, mutual confusion, and he has no clue what the next step is supposed to be.

“That—I mean, that was cool,” Soonyoung murmurs, touching a finger to his bottom lip, because it was. He may not be sure what it means, or if he like-likes Wonwoo, or if he’s definitely gay, but he knows that kissing Wonwoo is pretty cool, and it’s something.

Wonwoo visibly relaxes, the corners of his lips curling up. “It was? It was. That’s good.”

 

* * *

 

After class, the two of them walk to the school gym for Soonyoung’s three o’clock dance practice, running slightly late due to Soonyoung’s last period Social Studies teacher being unreasonable. Wonwoo has to hold Soonyoung steady by the arm, lest he jump up and down the whole way in excitement of getting his first glimpse of the choreography the team—including _Soonyoung_ —will be preparing over the summer.

“Do you think they’ll let me help?” Soonyoung thinks aloud, more than genuinely asks.

Wonwoo tugs at Soonyoung’s arm, and when Soonyoung looks at him, he’s squinting, even through his glasses. Soonyoung follows Wonwoo’s line of sight and lets out an unintelligible noise.

All of the team members, new and old, are sitting scattered across the lower bleachers, watching attentively as Hyunwoo demonstrates choreography on the floor. Soonyoung’s “Get Another Boyfriend” choreography, to be exact. Well, okay—from what he can see, Hyunwoo has actually gotten some parts of it wrong, but it’s unmistakably his own nonetheless.

“Nonu, I did such a good job that they wanna use it,” Soonyoung whispers, excitedly.

He hurries to the other side of the gym, all but dragging Wonwoo, who hasn’t let go of him. They join the rest of the group on the bleachers, with Soonyoung clapping along at the end of the number.

Hyunwoo scans the bleachers, and when he makes eye contact with Soonyoung, he starts walking off to the side and gestures for Soonyoung to follow.

“This is _so cool_ ,” Soonyoung chirps, once they’re face-to-face. This is actual proof that he is one of the best, if not _the_ best in school, after all.

Hyunwoo raises an eyebrow. “So,” he starts, “you’re chill with keeping this to yourself, right?”

Soonyoung’s head tilts slightly in confusion. “What do you mean?”

“Look,” Hyunwoo lowers his volume, “your choreography is really good. Really, really good. But all of our stuff is done by me. Either we agree it’s mine, or we can just trash it. Totally your call.”

The stutter of a nod he offers in return feels almost involuntary. “I—yeah. For sure.”

If anything, the fact that the captain of the dance team wants to put his name on Soonyoung’s work is even _stronger_ proof that Soonyoung is the best, right? No one would want to claim something subpar. Plus, this way his choreography will be seen by the whole school at next year’s first pep rally, and maybe even in a competition or two. The icky tangle in the pit of his stomach is purely excitement at the possibility of his choreography winning awards, probably.

He returns to his seat beside Wonwoo, who looks vaguely uneasy, himself. Two of the other new members, girls from the “I’m Your Girl” audition, glance apologetically in his direction. Soonyoung takes in a deep breath.

“What’s going on?” Wonwoo whispers, leaning in.

“Nothing,” Soonyoung breathes out, shakily. “They liked it.”

One of the long-time team members, who had not been present on try-out day, starts hyping Hyunwoo up for giving everyone such _winning_ material, and initiates another wave of applause.

“But it’s Soonyoung’s,” Wonwoo announces, once the noise of the clapping around them dies down.

“—favorite choreography I’ve ever seen! It is, yeah,” Soonyoung hurries to add, with a nervous laugh. He nudges Wonwoo’s foot, facing him to mouth that it’s okay.

“It’s not okay,” Wonwoo says, much louder than Soonyoung would like, “it’s stealing.” He looks to the “I’m Your Girl” pair, but they both nervously duck their heads.

Soonyoung grabs Wonwoo’s hand, squeezing it tightly in an attempt to get him to cut it out. The rest of the team is just about an even split between those staring at Hyunwoo, and those craning their necks to stare at Wonwoo and Soonyoung.

Hyunwoo’s face is tensed up—like he’s making an effort to remain stoic. “Why are you even here? Are you his _boyfriend_ or something?”

Anyone who wasn’t yet looking at them definitely is now. Soonyoung feels his ears start to burn, and promptly lets go of Wonwoo’s hand. He isn’t Wonwoo’s boyfriend, is he? Sure, they kissed this morning, and Soonyoung liked it, but kissing and dating aren’t the same thing. Hyunwoo doesn’t even _know_ that they kissed.

“Boyfr—he’s not my boyfriend,” Soonyoung sputters.

 

* * *

 

“Soonyoung, come on.”

“I just wanted everyone to know, Nonu,” Soonyoung whines. Both his ears and his cheeks are still flushed pink, uncomfortably warm.

“How can they know if they think it’s someone else’s?” Wonwoo goes to rest a hand on Soonyoung’s shoulder as they walk, but hesitates. “I want people to know you’re good, too, right, but you already know you’re good, and so do I, so isn’t that what matters?”

“I don’t know.” Soonyoung curls his fingers into a fist at his side, digs nails into his palm in frustration. “At least they didn’t kick me off the team.”

“I don’t know why you didn’t _quit_. I mean, I know, but I don’t know.”

They turn a corner onto a side street with less foot traffic. Wonwoo takes a quick look around before pulling Soonyoung into the seclusion of a small space between buildings.

“I’m really sorry that I upset you, okay?” Wonwoo places a tentative hand over Soonyoung’s, tries to coax him to relax it. “Just, he was ripping you off, you know.”

“Yeah, but if people liked it, then maybe next time I could do it for real, with my name and everything,” Soonyoung hums, worrying his lip between his teeth. He unfurls his fist to allow Wonwoo to slot their fingers together.

Holding hands with Wonwoo is cool in the same way that kissing him is.

“Nonu, am I your boyfriend?” Soonyoung asks, barely above a whisper. He feels the increased pressure of Wonwoo’s thumb against his own, and he’s not sure if he should’ve said anything at all, for either of their sakes.

“I’d like it… if you are,” Wonwoo says, cautiously. His free hand moves up to curve around the back of his neck.

“What if we’re best friends who kiss? Can we do that?” It’s a notion that feels much easier to swallow, he thinks. That he wants to keep kissing Wonwoo is one of the only things he’s certain of, in this, in general, and certainty is a good feeling even in fragments.

Wonwoo closes his eyes for a few beats. “Yeah,” he nods, finally. “Do you wanna come over? Play Pokémon? You could borrow Bohyuk’s Game Boy.”

 

* * *

 

They’d kissed again at Wonwoo’s apartment, right on the living room sofa while Bohyuk was busy doing homework in his room, before Wonwoo’s parents arrived home from work.

Soonyoung flops down onto his bed at the end of the day, after he’s changed into pajamas. He may need to clear his head.

He reaches to retrieve his Discman from the nightstand, pulls the headphones snugly over his ears. The [mix CD](https://open.spotify.com/user/kongsook/playlist/0xMFo88QoI6o6oJVTauZ0R?si=z2NouD6OSU6kLqYlqOvr9g) from Wonwoo, left in its case on Soonyoung’s bed all day, is slipped over his finger and placed into the player with care. A soothing, guitar-heavy melody begins once he presses play, and he softens into it, stretching an arm back to rest behind his head. He only gets as far as the singer’s first mention of the word ‘yellow’ by the time his door is slowly pushed open and his sister walks in, carrying a cupcake with a small, unlit candle stuck into it.

Minkyung starts to silently gesture for him to remove his headphones—he’s way ahead of her, already pushing them off and pausing the CD at the sight of the cupcake.

“I got this for you on my way home,” she tells him, keeping her voice low as she shuts the door behind herself. She takes a seat on a free space of bed, and Soonyoung pushes himself upright. “I can’t find where mom put the lighter, but you can still wish. A candle is a candle.”

“I already got to wish on the cake, though.” Soonyoung eyes the cupcake, vanilla cake with a generous amount of bright blue frosting piled on top.

Minkyung shrugs. “So? You can have more than one, there’s no law.”

Soonyoung certainly isn’t one to argue with extra magic, or cake.

He takes the cupcake into both hands and keeps it close in front of his face, close enough that a tiny blob of frosting transfers onto his nose, to be sure his wish will be received as directly as possible. Shutting his eyes tight, he tries to ignore the feeling of Minkyung watching him. Something about it feels embarrassing, as though in such near proximity she could hear him deliberating about what to wish for in his own head. There may not be a law prohibiting multiple birthday wishes, but a person is definitely not supposed to let anyone else know what they’re wishing for.

What Soonyoung wants is to be older. To be able to speed up past the point of having to deal with confusing feelings for his best friend, or being overlooked at school, or not being allowed to eat the delicious snacks lining the grocery aisles to his heart’s content. Supposedly, he’s grown a whole year older just today, but thirteen doesn’t feel any different or more freeing than twelve. If he could age up to, say, twenty-five, with everything figured out and on a silver platter for his taking, life would be much simpler.

What he actually wishes for is a PlayStation 2.


	2. what's my age again? - blink-182

**2018**

 

_“I choose you, Soonyoung!” An enlarged, anthropomorphic Lil’ Nonu flings a Poké Ball into the air, with Soonyoung emerging from it in the form of an almighty Charizard. He’s about to unleash some sweet flames on the Venusaur that’s been summoned to battle him by the opposing Beanie Baby—he doesn’t know this one personally—when the Venusaur’s body begins to drip with something, steps slowing as its feet get stuck in the substance. Charizard Soonyoung watches in confusion, head tilted to the side as the Venusaur gradually shapeshifts into a gigantic jar of honey right before Soonyoung’s awesome draconic eyes._

His vision of the halted Pokémon battle goes hazy, Charizard Soonyoung’s surroundings slowly dissolving into an array of fuzzy, multi-colored lights as Soonyoung is drawn out of his sleep. He thinks he hears the distant sound of a shuffle, followed by a light _click_. Not wanting to open his eyes, he pulls the blanket up from chest-level to cover his neck, and buries his head in his pillow to try to will himself back to sleep—the five more minutes before his mom comes back could be all it takes to get back into action and defeat Venusaur.

Unfortunately, this is turning out to be one of those mornings when his body does not _want_ to sleep in, no matter how many different ways he tries to adjust the position of his legs for optimal comfort. Soonyoung yawns against the pillow, kicking at the edge of his comforter until his feet hang out of it in the relatively cool air as a last ditch effort. He begrudgingly turns his head to the side, cracking an eye open only to screw it back shut at the bright burn of sunlight. It takes him a few moments to register how weird that is—his bedroom doesn’t even have a window.

“Mom?”

_Who was that?_

He clears his throat and tries to call out again, louder this time. “Dad? Minkyung?”

Soonyoung has suffered through at least three videos in school by now about his changing body, but he doesn’t recall a single one saying that a guy’s voice could change this drastically overnight. Is it a secret rite of passage that people aren’t allowed to know about until they turn thirteen and experience it firsthand? Maybe thirteen has more perks than he’d thought. This new voice isn’t all that low, but it’s certainly much more so than it had been yesterday, and Soonyoung bets that it’s totally manlier than Wonwoo’s will be when his birthday rolls around next month.

He eases himself upright, keeping the comforter warmly around his torso, and opens his eyes for real this time. Blearily, he blinks at the room he’s woken up in, which is absolutely not his own bedroom. It’s probably still an apartment, going by the layout; in fact, it’s sort of all just one moderately-sized room with a lot of stuff squished into it. The bed—bigger than _his_ bed, by far—is pushed up against the wall in a corner with a large, rectangular window right above it. There’s a desk sitting awkwardly between a dresser and a living room-type area, a small black sofa with a simple wooden coffee table and the nicest TV Soonyoung has ever seen. Across the room, one corner makes up a kitchen, and the other is occupied by what Soonyoung assumes is the bathroom, as the only closed-off space he can see.

The sound of a _ding_ , stifled but startling, goes off from somewhere close by and Soonyoung nearly topples over, curling fingers tightly into the blanket in his surprise. He scrambles to dig around for the source of the noise among the bedding until he upturns a pillow and finds a black and white rectangular object just sitting there. The black section of it suddenly lights up when he takes it into his hand, displaying a picture of two smiling men. One of them is completely unfamiliar to Soonyoung, but he’s handsome; bright grin, angular nose coming nearly to a point, eyes sharp but kind. The other looks remarkably similar to Soonyoung himself, only it’s _not_ him, because this guy is old, and Soonyoung isn’t.

Could his parents have packed him up in the car and driven overnight to a distant cousin’s apartment without waking him up? Is it like those times when he was little that he’d fall asleep in the car only to wake up in his bed the next morning?

Along with the photo, there’s a gray bar with a message trailing off beneath the name ‘Seokmin’ in bold letters. Soonyoung feels all around the object, pressing his index finger to everything that looks like a button until he lands on the circular one at the bottom, which opens up a new screen covered messily in little squares, so many that he can’t make out the photo they’re scattered over. He tries pressing a finger to a blue square with a little envelope on it—nope, that’s email. It takes some trial and error to figure out that pressing the circle again brings him back to the squares, but once that’s settled, it’s easy enough to locate the correct square.

 **Today** 8:32 AM

_Didn’t want to wake you, went to hang out with Hansol and Jihoon. If you’re reading this get some more rest honey!!@@_

Soonyoung physically cringes at the use of the name ‘honey’ and closes out of the message without replying.

There’s a green square in the lower left corner with a picture of a phone on it, and he scrolls through the list of ‘recents’ for either Minkyung’s or Wonwoo’s name—he finds Minkyung’s first and presses it, holding the gadget up to his ear as it begins to ring. Considering all of the capabilities this thing seems to have, even making phone calls, Soonyoung is pretty sure it’s worth about a million dollars, and maybe he shouldn’t be touching it, but he chooses to continue anyway.

“Soonie!” His sister’s voice is a welcome familiarity, bright and chirpy as ever.

“I need to see you,” Soonyoung starts, surprising himself all over again with his own voice. “I don’t—I’m at… the apartment? Can you come here?”

“What happened?” Her tone falls in worry. “Are you sick? Did you and Seokmin break up or something? I can be there in like, half an hour.”

“Break— _what?_ ” He chooses not to think too hard about the implications of Minkyung’s question, for now. “No, no. Just, come over. Please.”

 

* * *

 

“It’s been too long since you let me do this, Soonie,” Minkyung says, dipping the brush into the jar of red nail polish. She glides it over Soonyoung’s thumbnail with precision, beaming.

“No, that’s the problem,” Soonyoung sighs, “you _just_ painted my nails two weeks ago. They were blue that time.”

Minkyung looks old. Not _old-old_ , not like their mom, but about as old as the Soonyoung look-alike in that photo, and that probably diminishes any chance there is of it truly just being a look-alike after all. He still hasn’t been able to bring himself to look in a mirror and confirm—using the bathroom ahead of Minkyung’s arrival had necessitated him keeping a hand over his eyes the whole time and feeling around with the other, for lack of knowledge of where the mirror would be.

“Are you overworked?” She looks up from his nails, brows furrowed. “Minghao can probably handle some classes next week without you, just take a breather.”

“Classes?”

“Your dance classes. I’m really considering whether I should take you to the hospital.” Finishing the first coat of polish on one hand, she takes his other hand into her own to get started on the rest of his nails.

“Minkyung, I’m fine,” he pauses. “Just don’t freak out, okay? What year is this?”

“I don’t think you can ask something like that and expect me not to worry, but it’s 2018.” She jabs the brush toward him, drops of nail polish splattering onto the back of his hand. “If you’re messing with me, it’s not funny.”

“I’m _not_.” Fingers threatening to ball up in frustration, he does his best to remain still and not ruin his still-drying nails. He really needs to keep Minkyung in his corner. “Okay, I guess I did have a fight with… with Seokmin,” he lies, taking a deep breath, “but it’s my bad and it’s whatever.”

Minkyung drops the brush back into the jar and screws it closed after finishing up the coat on his pinky nail. “I knew it,” she says, sympathetically. “Of course that’d mess you up.”

He just nods at her before she heads to the kitchen area and returns with a spoon and the pint of ice cream she’d bought on the way over. It’s Minkyung’s favorite flavor, chocolate with marshmallow and caramel, and little solid chocolates in the shape of fish mixed throughout. Soonyoung isn’t big on ice cream, but he considers it his own favorite flavor, too, because Minkyung always shares the fish with him. Minkyung picks a chocolate fish out of the ice cream with her fingers and Soonyoung opens his mouth to be fed, as his nails are still too wet to do it himself.

With her hand so close to his face, it dawns on Soonyoung that Minkyung is wearing what looks a lot like a wedding ring, the actual _marriage_ kind of ring, and he cannot even begin to process this on top of everything else. She can’t be married, she’s fourteen—except, she’s thirty-one, now.

Even though she looks a little different, and possibly has a _husband_ , Minkyung’s presence is still bringing him comfort in the midst of this seemingly ever-growing mountain of oddities, and he’s never been more thankful to have a sister.

“So, you know,” he says, chewing on his second chocolate fish while Minkyung takes a spoonful of ice cream for herself, “I’ve been dating… Seokmin? For a long time?” Soonyoung gives a nervous glance toward a framed photo of himself with the man who is probably Seokmin that he’s been trying to pretend isn’t right there on the table in front of him.

“I mean, yeah, like nearly three years, right?” Minkyung digs her spoon into the ice cream so it sticks and stands straight when she lets go of it. “You don’t have to talk about it, but if he did anything wrong _the day after your birthday_ I’ll set him straight, Soonie.”

Three years. He has a long-term, live-in boyfriend—does that mean he is gay for sure? It’s not that he doesn’t want to be gay, rather that it feels strange and overwhelming to go from questioning his sexuality one day to having so much tangible proof of it suddenly falling into his lap the next, even aside from having to deal with the bigger picture of the situation at hand.

Plus, he likes kissing Wonwoo, but he has no idea if he’ll like kissing Seokmin. What if kissing this Seokmin guy means he’s not allowed to kiss Wonwoo anymore?

“Nah, it was just stupid.” Soonyoung shrugs, pressing the pad of a finger to one of his nails to check if it’s still sticky. It feels dry enough, so he grabs another fish for himself out of the pint.

Soonyoung picks up the gadget from the table and presses the circular button with his thumb, but this time, the screen just shakes a little and displays a message to ‘try again’, switching over to a keypad with the words ‘Touch ID or Passcode’. His face scrunches up in confusion.

“Wrong finger,” Minkyung tells him, eyeing the screen.

Using his index finger this time, he tries the button again, and it works just like it had earlier. This thing only answers to a specific finger? Soonyoung wonders briefly if Old Minkyung is an illusion and he’s actually entered The Matrix.

“Can you help me find Nonu in this?” He shoves the gadget into Minkyung’s hand.

“ _Nonu_ as in Wonwoo Jeon?” She gives him a blank look, but taps and scrolls through the thing for him, anyway. “He’s not in your contacts. Did he Facebook you or something?”

“Did he what?”

“Very funny, you’re too cool to use Facebook now, I know,” Minkyung moves the ice cream to the table to free her hand just so she can flick him on the arm. “But if you’re looking to, like, reconnect, you should Facebook him. Here,” she starts tapping away again, before turning the screen for Soonyoung to see. “ _You_ just sent him a friend request.”

A page with a photo of Wonwoo appears, and sure enough, he looks old, too. It’s angled from above, but his eyes are looking below the lens and his face is just slightly closer up than it needs to be. Even so, he’s good-looking—he’s grown into the sharpness of his features handsomely, and his hairstyle is objectively several steps up from the one his mom used to _encourage_ him to get, even though Soonyoung thinks it was cute to begin with. Soonyoung feels a faint, familiar warmth swelling in his chest the longer he fixates on this version of Wonwoo’s face.

“Wait,” he halfway snaps out of it, but keeps his eyes on the photo, “why aren’t we already friends? Maybe I can try him on AIM, does this have AIM?”

“Well, nothing has AIM,” Minkyung sighs, handing it back to him. “If you’re trying to make Seokmin jealous, I need you to tell me what happened so I know whether to stop you or not.”

Soonyoung blinks at her. “I’m _trying_ to talk to my best friend.” And maybe kiss him, a little bit, but he’s not sure telling Minkyung that will help his case.

“You haven’t even seen him since, what, high school?”

Something in his stomach flips unpleasantly. “But I was with him yesterday, well, not yesterday, but it can’t be that long.” There’s panic in his voice, the words coming out too quickly and melding together. The longest he’s ever gone without seeing Wonwoo was that one summer between fifth and sixth grade when Wonwoo’s family went to Disney World for a week.

“Hey, it’s okay.” In contrast to his own, Minkyung’s tone is soothing, and she leans over to wrap comforting arms around his shoulders. “Whatever dredged this up, if you want to reach out then go for it.” She breaks the hug to grab the ice cream back and pick out another fish for him.

 

* * *

 

Minkyung makes him reply to Seokmin’s text, on what he’s gathered from further conversation is somehow considered a run-of-the-mill cell phone, before she has to leave to meet a friend around noon.

 **Today** 11:39 AM

_thanks luv u_

Without his sister present to occupy his time, Soonyoung is at a loss for what to do. He’d like to go outside, if only for a walk, but he has very little idea of where he is, and even less of how to find his way back from any exploration.

After a while of sprawling out in bed, staring at the ceiling and trying to make sense of what’s happening to him—maybe it’s an elaborate dream, maybe he’s fallen into a coma—Soonyoung reaches for his phone again and pulls Wonwoo’s page back up on the screen.

The request is still pending, so only a frustratingly small amount of information is available to him, and even worse, no photos, other than the main one. Regardless, he keenly absorbs as much as he does have access to. Wonwoo studied at SUNY Stony Brook. He lives in New York, New York, and he works at a place called Taro-bithia (a boba café, Soonyoung discovers after clicking through to its page). He is also in a relationship with Mingyu Kim.

Soonyoung promptly throws the phone to the edge of the bed without bothering to lock it, and it lands so near to the edge that it threatens to slide off. It’s not like Soonyoung wants to be Wonwoo’s boyfriend or anything, but he doesn’t want Mingyu Kim to be Wonwoo’s boyfriend, either. In an ideal world, Soonyoung and Wonwoo would be two bachelors who hold hands, and he can’t help but feel that this time travel business has been something of a rip-off in not giving him that scenario.

Soonyoung tries in vain to draw the phone back by nudging it with his toe repeatedly until it does fall to the floor. Scrambling to hang over the side of the bed, mildly worried but not quite enough to motivate him to actually get up, Soonyoung peers down at the phone before retrieving it. He whimpers when he turns it over in his hand to reveal the front, on which the screen has been shattered into a spider web-like pattern. Not expecting much, he tries to unlock the phone, and to his relief, it still lights up and seems to function the same despite everything.

It opens back up to Wonwoo’s Facebook page, and Soonyoung brings up the information of the café again, scrolling down until his eyes land on an address. He scans over it a few times until he thinks he’s got it memorized, then opens his messages and shoots a text to Minkyung asking how to get there.

 **Today** 12:32 PM

_soonie just use the map._

_nevermind. i’ll get you an uber._

Minkyung follows up with a picture of a map covered in tiny cars, then a license plate number, and instructions to be outside in five minutes. Soonyoung jumps up and hurries toward the dresser, sifting through the drawers and pulling out items that look to his taste—a pair of jeans, a white t-shirt, a red flannel shirt. He considers that these clothes may not actually belong to him, but finds that clothing ownership is currently the least of his worries. They fit well enough, and his _boyfriend_ probably wouldn’t mind, anyway.

 

* * *

 

The driver has him get out of the car during a red light at the corner of the block, and he walks in what he’s mostly sure is the right direction until he stands in front of the café’s tiny but striking lavender storefront, right beneath a sign reading _Taro-bithia_ in loopy letters. The door is propped open, and beside it there’s a chalkboard listing the details and prices of their most popular variations of boba, paired with drawings of boba cups with smiling faces and hearts in their eyes.

The walls inside are silver with a subtle shine to them, but the tables, the countertops, and the cushions of the chairs are all a uniform lavender, so much that Soonyoung feels instantly engulfed by the color upon stepping in. There’s a [pop song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uexk7jWXYmU) in Korean that Soonyoung doesn’t recognize playing at a low volume. Soonyoung squints at the guy working the counter, whose back is turned as he’s finishing up a customer’s drink, trying to spot a distinguishing characteristic of Wonwoo’s. He’s in the middle of gauging how broad he feels Wonwoo’s shoulders could reasonably have grown to be when the employee turns around and hands the drink off to the other customer, and Soonyoung feels his chest catch, like he’s had the breath knocked right out of him.

The customer ahead of him retreats from the counter and walks out the door, and Soonyoung can’t stop himself from yelling out, “Nonu!” Out of excitement, relief, recognition—he’s not sure which is most prominent in the moment. With the way Wonwoo’s head snaps up to stare at him through widened eyes at the exclamation, though, Soonyoung regains that unsettling sensation in his stomach. Wonwoo doesn’t just look surprised, or even uncomfortable; he looks confused to see Soonyoung, and somehow that cuts a bit deeper.

Clearly on some sort of terrible autopilot, Soonyoung makes his way to the counter at a bizarre jogging pace, and he doesn’t know why he’s doing it, but it’s happening, and he’s sure it looks about as unnatural as it feels.

“Sup,” he murmurs, doing all he can to focus on the menu behind Wonwoo rather than Wonwoo himself. He feels the shells of his ears heating up.

“Soonyoung.” Turns out, Wonwoo’s new voice is _way_ lower than Soonyoung’s own, and were the situation at hand not so mind-blowingly awkward, Soonyoung would be miffed about it—he’ll save that for another time.

“I’ll have, um,” Soonyoung absentmindedly pokes his tongue out to lick his bottom lip, “a large taro?”

Wonwoo is silent for about a beat too long, blinking rapidly once he seems to realize he’s supposed to say something here. “Which topping would you like?”

Soonyoung forces himself to look directly at Wonwoo’s face, but does his best to continue avoiding any eye contact. In person, and up close, Wonwoo looks even better than his Facebook profile had led Soonyoung to believe—from his eyes to his jawline, all pointed angles and fox-like features.

In addition to having the deeper voice between the two of them, Wonwoo has also grown noticeably taller than Soonyoung has, which feels unfair.

“Strawberry jellies?” Soonyoung leans a hand against the cool countertop.

Wonwoo gives a polite nod, then starts to gather ingredients behind the counter. “How’ve you been?”

He’s figured out at least in a vague sense where he and Wonwoo stand, and apparently it’s in a place of obligatory adult small talk. Soonyoung would love to wake up from whatever this is immediately. He stares down at his own fingers tapping over the counter.

“I Facebooked you.”

“Oh.” It’s probably a blessing that Soonyoung can’t see Wonwoo’s face. “I didn’t see that.” Wonwoo finishes pouring the ingredients and places the shiny silver cup into a machine that begins to shake it up, noisily.

“It was today,” Soonyoung says, raising the volume of his voice to be heard over the whirring.

Wonwoo faces him again, wearing the same expression of sheer bewilderment as before, lips parted for a few moments as though he’s having trouble finding his words. “Did you know I work here?”

Soonyoung hadn’t considered that Wonwoo may put that together.

“No,” he shrugs, in an attempt to seem as nonchalant as possible. “I’m just here for some boba. See?” He slips a straw with blue stripes out of the jar on the counter and holds it between his fingers, the way he’s seen sophisticates in movies do with those long cigarette holders, to assert his claim.

The display earns him a raise of an eyebrow from Wonwoo, who quietly goes to retrieve the drink mix from the shaker and grabs a plastic cup from beneath the counter. He moves to the case of toppings and drops a couple of scoops of the strawberry jellies into the empty cup, then carefully pours the contents of the shaken one over the jellies.

“Looks good.” Soonyoung eyes the drink, the deep red of the strawberry jellies blending prettily into the taro flavoring’s signature purple. “I’m ready for this jelly.” He chuckles at his own joke, pleased when he takes note of the smile Wonwoo cracks while carrying the drink to the sealing machine.

When Wonwoo presents the drink to him, Soonyoung stabs the straw into it with enthusiasm. The sound it makes when it punctures the plastic is so satisfying.

“I’ll add you,” Wonwoo says, as Soonyoung pulls a credit card out of the wallet he’d grabbed from the apartment. “On Facebook.”

Soonyoung beams, smile blooming even wider at the brush of Wonwoo’s fingers against his own when he hands over the card. Wonwoo still has nice hands—to look at, to touch, probably to hold, if Soonyoung can snag the opportunity again.

He hears the approaching footsteps of another customer who’s just walked in the door, and feels instantly disappointed, because now Wonwoo is going to have to pay attention to this other person and that was not the plan at all. Wonwoo returns his credit card and he lazily shoves it into his pocket.

“I really, _really_ wanna talk to you, Nonu.” Soonyoung brings himself to make proper eye contact with Wonwoo for the first time today. “Let’s Facebook a lot.”

“Yeah, we can do...  that.” Wonwoo eyes the customer behind Soonyoung. “Enjoy your boba, Soonyoung.”

Soonyoung begrudgingly walks away from the counter and settles at a table. The music has changed since when he’d first walked in, to a [girl group](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3KSD5sI0OM) this time. He makes a mental note to ask Wonwoo who sings it some time.

Taking a sip of his boba, Soonyoung fiddles with the position of the straw until he manages to get a jelly through it. He makes a game of swirling the jellies around with the straw, shaping them into slightly different lumps of red each time and watching the way the colors mix together. Without the jellies, the taro milk tea would blend in with the lavender of the table top (and half of the rest of the café) almost perfectly. Soonyoung ponders whether the café was intentionally designed with taro in mind.

“Hey, Nonu,” Soonyoung twists around in his seat, pointing to his tea and gesturing wildly to various lavender items of decor around the room. “It matches!”

The customer halfway turns to glance at him out of the corner of their eye, then seems to lose interest. Wonwoo tilts his head and gives Soonyoung a thumbs up before returning his attention to the customer.

Soonyoung takes another sip, smiling around the straw. He picks his cup off of the table and starts to stand up to leave, then realizes he doesn’t remember where he lives. Maybe he should get another one of those Over cars, or whatever.

 **Today** 1:22 PM

_minkyung wuts my address_

 

* * *

 

Soonyoung tosses his empty boba cup into the trash without looking, walking a direct line to the bed to flop down onto it. Lying on his stomach, he props himself up on his elbows, holding his phone in front of his face. He swipes through the three cluttered screens of square icons, opening the ones that look the most interesting. Apparently, he has access to that car service— _Uber_ —on here, so at least he won’t have to text Minkyung every time he wants to go outside.

He selects a white square with a blue zigzag design on it, labelled as _SNOW_ , and it opens to a screen that reflects his own face right back to him at an unflattering angle. Soonyoung fumbles with the phone and shifts his position until the image on the screen looks like less of an alien. Curiously, he turns his head to one side, then the other, examining his features from different angles. The most notable difference is in his cheeks, he thinks—they’re still chubby, but he’s lost a lot of baby fat from them, and as a result, his other features look more pronounced. He experiments with facial expressions, beginning with a simple smile and escalating to just about any form his face is capable of shaping into.

When he presses a circle near the bottom of the screen, the image of his face freezes. Oh, so this is a camera. This particular expression isn’t exactly what he would’ve chosen to preserve if he’d known, eyes unfocused and mouth warped, but he presses the downward-pointing arrow to keep it (he thinks—it does respond with a check mark) anyway. He’ll probably send it to his sister later just to get a reaction.

The smiley face next to the first button leads him to a box of tiny pictures, which he scrolls through aimlessly until he lands on one that looks particularly cute and presses on it. Just like that, his face is now overlaid with a cat’s mouth and nose, and the top of his head is adorned with a pair strawberries in place of cat ears. Soonyoung angles the phone to the way he looks his best, smiling brightly as he snaps the picture and makes sure to save it.

As he’s fumbling with switching his Facebook picture to himself as a strawberry cat, the door to the apartment is pushed open and Soonyoung looks up to see Seokmin walk inside. Soonyoung hurriedly completes the process of setting the profile photo and locks his phone, jumping up from the bed to meet Seokmin in the middle of the apartment.

Seokmin is taller than Soonyoung is, too, but not quite so much as Wonwoo. He greets Soonyoung cheerfully with a toothy smile, eyes crinkling with it when he leans in to give Soonyoung a swift peck on the lips. It’s weird, but an entirely different brand of weird than Soonyoung’s first kiss with Wonwoo. Where kissing Wonwoo had straddled the line between jarring and _nice_ , kissing—or being kissed by—Seokmin doesn’t fully land anywhere on the spectrum. It simply happens.

“Having a good day?” Seokmin heads over to the sofa, shrugging a backpack off his shoulders and setting it on the floor before he takes a seat. Soonyoung sits down next to him, just far enough to keep their legs from touching.

“Yeah,” Soonyoung nods, “Minkyung came over for a while. What about you?”

“We all got brunch! Here,” he unzips his backpack and pulls out a white paper bag, “I brought this back for you. It’s cookie butter-stuffed.”

Soonyoung has no idea what cookie butter is, but there’s approximately a zero percent chance that anything with such a name could be bad. He takes the bag and unwraps a clear box with three fluffy pieces of French toast placed neatly inside, topped with generous dollops of whipped cream and a small container of maple syrup tucked into the corner.

“Sweet, thanks!” Soonyoung rests the box in his lap while he fishes for the plastic utensils left in the bag. Rather than go to the trouble of using the provided butter knife, he opts to push his fork into the corner of a piece of toast and drag it until a sizable portion rips off, some of the gooey filling seeping out of the remainder. He manages to stuff the entirety of what’s on his fork into his mouth at once, and, wow, cookie butter is delicious. His mom would never allow him to order something like this as a meal.

“You like it?” Seokmin laughs, in a surprisingly high pitch.

“It’s awesome,” Soonyoung tries to say, muffled, cheeks rounded out with fullness.

The list of things Soonyoung knows about Seokmin and their relationship together is very short: they’ve been dating for three years, they live together, he refers to Soonyoung as ‘honey’, and he brings Soonyoung food. He seems like a pretty nice guy, so Soonyoung tentatively feels comfortable continuing to crash here—it’s not actually crashing, he supposes, but it certainly feels that way, like planning an extended sleepover with a friend of a friend.

Seokmin reaches for something beneath the coffee table, which Soonyoung is only now realizing has a shelf attached to its underside. He slides a slim black box with a glossy design printed over the center onto the table. Soonyoung squints—it looks like a silhouette of the PlayStation logo, but this isn’t the way a PlayStation 2 is supposed to look.

“Let’s play after you eat,” Seokmin casually touches a hand to Soonyoung’s upper arm, “I’m beating your score this time, I can sense it.”

Soonyoung practically inhales a huge glob of cookie butter, putting his fork down in favor of spinning the box around to read the letters engraved on the front.

_PS4._

There’s a fourth PlayStation model. It’s a well-known fact that the newer a product, the better it inherently is, and Soonyoung owns _the fourth PlayStation_.

Wishes can take twists and turns like that.

**Author's Note:**

> you can find me on twitter @hoshipocus ♡


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